Vote: North Korea, bluster or danger?

North Korea has been the crazy aunt in the attic of southeast Asia for so long that it’s easy to ignore its latest string of threats, which are now backed by nuclear weapons. After the Iraq debacle, a war sold on phony intel, it’s also easy to be skeptical of intelligence that shows the north further ahead on its weapons program than analysts had thought.

I’ve written about the geopolitical consequences of complacency elsewhere. There, my question was: What if the smart people are wrong, and North Korea, whether driven by recklessness, ideology or fear that it will never be stronger than at this moment, when China might be drawn in on its side, actually starts a war? What if North Korea is the Serbia of 1914? From the economic perspective, the danger from the north is not merely a wider war, but one happening in the middle of the world’s workshop.

Washington’s inflation-adjusted gross domestic product grew 2.3 percent in the second quarter, the fifth strongest showing among the states. The new report comes today from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The rate is down from a blistering 4.8 percent in the same period last year (the first quarter’s 11.5 percent was likely a statistical […]

The future for the existing world trade system and America’s place in it is facing one of its biggest challenges in history if President-elect Trump fulfills his campaign pledges. Washington state would be a big loser.